


Heart Eyes

by RainbowArches



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5659738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainbowArches/pseuds/RainbowArches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He takes pictures. She paints.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart Eyes

Andrew was responsible for most of the pictures in the album. Friends flipping through it expected to see themselves over and over, with lots of Melinda in between. Those pictures were there, but mostly Andrew photographed things that caught his eye in the moment, things that he would forget about five seconds later; light catching on glass just right; wind chimes on a quiet windy day; a bird on the pond preparing to take off. Andrew had a lot of artsy friends were constantly frustrated with him. He had no technique, no concept of light and shadow or theme or anything that they thought photographers should have.

“What inspired you to do this?”

“I just took the picture.”

“Why?”

“It was pretty.”

“Ah, but you see…”

And then they would proceed to tell him what it all meant and what he was really doing. They always forgot he wasn’t a professional. Melinda said they were jealous that the skill came so naturally to him. Andrew was secretly pleased to hear this, even though he didn’t understand how photography required skill. You point the camera at the thing you like and press the button. What made a picture good? His friends had several varying answers to this, none of which Andrew cared about. Andrew thought his pictures were good because they were of exactly what he wanted at the time that he took them.

“Why don’t you do it professionally?” Melinda asked once or twice.

“I’m too busy explaining people’s brains to them for money.”

If pressed Andrew could probably give more insight into his process than “looks pretty; takes picture.” Often it was the way something made him feel that made him take a picture of it. Sometimes it was these little things like wind chimes in a breeze or a sun catcher at the right angle that made him feel perfectly contented when he’d been worrying too much, or heavy and sleepy like he was watching a lullaby, or inexplicably sad but not in a bad way. He didn’t take the picture to hold onto the feeling so much as to remind him that these things made him feel strongly enough to want to remember them. It was cathartic. He didn’t like to talk about any of this though or think about it too much, or he would stop enjoying it and wouldn’t be as personal.

He didn’t take tons of pictures of Melinda because he didn’t need to. He’d always remember her and how she made him feel. It was enough to be around her. There’d come a time when he’d regret not taking more pictures of her and of them together, but he’d get his second chance (and his third chance shortly after) and he wouldn’t waste it.

He had a picture of her clipping on her earrings as she stepped out of the bedroom, wearing her second wedding dress (not a wedding dress, just her favorite dress, a different one than the one she wore last time).

She shot him an unimpressed glance as she clipped on her other earring. “Can’t you wait an hour? That’s when I’ll actually make you take pictures.”

“I needed this picture. You looked so excited.”

“I am perfectly calm, thank you.”

Later, when Melinda saw the picture, she smiled at the excitement she saw bubbling behind what she _insisted_ was a calm exterior; flushed cheeks, the corners of her mouth slightly upturned. Melinda loved looking at the pictures he took of her. When she pictured herself she imagined an immensely sad woman, or a mean woman; just someone who looked unapproachable. But Andrew always captured her looking peaceful, happy, fun, bright. Even when she felt these things she imagined herself as the sad mean woman. She liked seeing herself soft; gentle, nice, happy, knowing that other people saw it too. Or at least Andrew saw it.

It might be vain, but the pictures of her were what she painted (she knew it wasn’t vain. She didn’t need Andrew to tell her that it was healthy). She didn’t reproduce his pictures so much as interpret them. She painted what she liked about them, the things about her that they expressed, as though to assure herself that those things were really there. She didn’t paint often; she liked to finish them in one sitting, which required time, which she didn’t have a lot of. But she’d developed an impressive portfolio over the years.

Her pictures were a little more abstract but definitely of her. They were mostly watercolors, though she’d come to appreciate pastels. She had more paintings of herself than she did photos at this point. She liked to find all the different ways she could express one thing, or sometimes she would come back to a picture and see something different, notice something she hadn’t before, and felt compelled to do her own rendition of it.

She kept her paintings to herself for the most part, didn’t even tell people she did them. She showed Andrew a few, since he’d taken the pictures she used, and he was always so gushy over them. It was gratifying, but she didn’t think she wanted to hear it over every single painting. He understood that and didn’t ask very often.

Her mother had found them once. Melinda had seen her on the floor, looking over them one by one, held delicately between her fingertips. Melinda had been about to announce herself, distract her from them in some way, but something in her mother’s smile as she made her stop. It was a happy-sad smile, like she got when she looked at old pictures of friends she hadn’t seen in a long time. Melinda quietly left her to look and didn’t mention it later.

Melinda didn’t do so many self-portraits after she and Andrew married the second time. She didn’t have that need anymore. Sometimes she set up her tripod outside and painted the garden, or the birdbath when it was being used, or the cat who sometimes napped in the sunny spot. Sometimes she painted Andrew, which he loved. These pictures she didn’t mind people looking at.

“We could frame them and hang them up,” Andrew suggested.

Melinda shrugged, not appalled at the idea, but feeling like maybe that was a little tacky.

“Maybe put a few in the bedroom,” he continued. “Or, you know, those spots in the living room where we put things that we want people to ask us about.”

“I’ve had offers.”

“Really? Good ones?”

Melinda shrugged again.

They did hang some in the bedroom to make the walls look less bare. And one in the nursery.


End file.
